Saturday, June 11, 2011

A Greek-themed dinner is one of the things my family does best. We find the best tzatziki at a nearby Mediterranean gourmet food shop (or make it ourselves), pick up the freshest pitas we can get our hands on, have perfected barbecuing pork tenderloin, pull out all the fixings for a killer Greek salad, and even have cheese on hand to fry up my favourite Greek dish Saganaki. The only thing that had never been given a 5-star rating at our big fat Greek dinners was our Greek potatoes. For some reason they would always turn out flavourless or dry, and sometimes even both.

We're big on teamwork for our big show stopping dinners, so for the big fat Greek dinner that we held last week, I was put in charge of the Greek potatoes. Because I knew that every other element of the meal would turn out extraordinary, I left no room for failure, looking up the top rated recipes for Greek style potatoes I could find. This led me to allrecipes.com recipe for Greek Style Potatoes. With 312 user ratings averaging 4.5 stars, I had hope that I had finally found my perfect Greek potatoes! In only a few minutes I had the potatoes prepped, in the baking dish, swimming in a sea of Mediterranean flavours. After an hour in the oven my potatoes were tender, and now resting in a reduced, thickened sauce, with thyme, rosemary, and lemon slices bobbing about. Sure enough, the potatoes turned out just I had dreamt they would! Just like the potatoes that my favourite Greek restaurants on the Danforth serve, the potatoes were tender, lemony, garlicky, and herbaceous, and tasted just as wonderful as every other 5-star dish at the table. Because this recipe is so super easy, with common ingredients, and such delicious results, I will definitely be making these potatoes again, and not just for big fat Greek dinners.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 cups water

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2-3 lemon slices, for garnish (optional)

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried rosemary

2 cubes chicken or vegetable bouillon

freshly ground pepper to taste

6 potatoes, peeled and quartered

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350º. In a small bowl mix together the olive oil, water, garlic, lemon juice, thyme, rosemary, and bouillon cubes. Season with pepper.

2. Arrange the potatoes evenly in the bottom of a medium baking dish. Pour the olive oil mixture over the potatoes, and top with the lemon slices. Bake for 1 hour, turning once or twice thorough cooking. Serve hot.